Responses to Enquiries

Here at Access Space I frequently get emails from people saying something along the lines of... “We really like what you’re doing and we’d like to set up our own lab - where do we start?”. Because I like to be helpful, I try to write back as comprehensively as possible - but, of course, I’m duplicating effort because I write similar things to what I’ve written to other people. Anyway, in a no-doubt doomed attempt to make this process a bit more efficient, I’m going to put some of the responses I’ve made here - and try to edit them and refine them appropriately.

— James Wallbank 2006/08/10 15:02

(1) Premises are a big issue. Looking into where you can site a lab is absolutely the first thing to do, because it takes longest to sort out. It can be worth starting out with weekly meetings or a club-like activity to start building up a group of people that’s interested, but in the end we’re convinced that you’ll need a fixed place to operate from, or if not, then a very regular, predictable and well-publicised schedule if you’re going to operate a lab in “peripatetic mode”.

(2) Getting hold of old kit is surprisingly easy. Start by asking close to home. Do you, members of your family, freinds or their families have old computers they’d be prepared to contribute? How about other students? Their families and friends? How about the University itself? Rather than going to the top, ask individual IT technicians for the different departments. They may be able to make small donations on a manageable scale, and some of them will be inspired by your ideas.

(3) Do use free, open-source software. This will give you a key advantage over Windows users - you’ll effectively double the lifespan of any one given bit of kit. It’ll also be legal (important) and sustainable, and virus-free. It’ll differentiate what you do from University computer labs - if you go the “secondhand Windows” route you’ll always end up playing catch-up with them... and they have budgets! Even though you may feel it’s a pain at first, the knowhow you’ll gain will be industrial-strength.

(4) Make sure you get your offer right. If you’re asking for computer donations, make sure you say “yes thanks” to EVERYTHING (except dead, or excess monitors, which will be expensive to dispose of). Take it even if you can’t use it, and then dispose of the stuff you don’t need in a green way. ALWAYS blank hard disks - don’t re-use software and DON’T EVER recover and re-use people’s data - people MUST trust they group if they’re going to give you their old machine.

(5) Be very careful about publicity. If you publicise too widely, and you’ve got your offer right, then you’ll find yourself overwhelmed by too many computers, most of which you’ll have to store, transport and recycle, which is hard work! Try places where individuals will see your notices, not businesses. (Public Libraries are good for us.)

(6) Watch out for businesses that are trying to offload rubbish onto you. DON’T accept a kind donation of old monitors without base-units - monitors typically cost £5 or more to dispose of correctly - whereas base-units may be worth up to £1 or even £2 as scrap. We have had a “kind business donor” try to give us 600 monitors... (i.e. avoid a £3000 disposal cost). Say no to this sort of nonsense.

(7) If you get to the point where you have premises set up and you’re raring to go, then we’ll be delighted to give you some old PCs - we could do a “Grow your Own Media Lab” workshop event with you and your group. There would be a small cost associated with this, but essentially the deal is “you pay for the training and we’ll throw in a computer lab for free”. Typical cost for a long weekend of activities is £2000.

(8) You’ll maximise the sustainablility of your lab if you make use of resources that you already have. You may think that you don’t have any way to get started, but actually you may have many thousands of pounds worth of resources, even if you don’t have any money. Ask yourself...

• What computers do we already have?
• Where are they? Have you already got a storage space or a back room lab somewhere where you can centralise them?
• Do you already have a place that you could use for regular meetings, just for now?
• Who would be prepared to lend a hand for special events, like install-days?
• Who forms your core group?
• You may be cash-poor, but are you time-rich? (i.e. you don’t have other things you have to do all week)? How can you use your time resources really effectively to increase your resources? (This could be learning skills, recruiting more people, getting donated stuff, or sorting things out, not just raising money.)
• What skills do the core group already have? What can you learn?
• How cool are your ideas? (You may not think this is a resource - but think again - if you’ve got some cool ideas for activities, it’ll be much, much easier to get people to volunteer to help, and to take part. Work it out: Who’d volunteer to teach bank employees how to use a spreadsheet? Who’d volunteer to help local kids to make an interactive online graffiti-wall?)

(9) It’s really important to get enthusiastic volunteers involved, and to keep on getting them involved. Volunteers may well do some things more effectively and more creatively than paid help. Don’t rely solely on a few selfless volunteers - they’ll burn out and get fed-up.

• Make sure you have a mechanism to recruit “one off” volunteers for short-term activities, like lan parties, music jams, techno bring-and-buys or software demo days. If you don’t have any special events, then invent some!
• Make sure your long-term volunteers are engaged on short-term projects - so they can see what they’ve achieved, take a rest, then start on a new project. That helps them build their skills and their CV, get a sense of achievement, and not feel taken for granted.

(10) Where to get set up may be cheaper than you think. While renting premises needs money, can you sometimes get permission to hold regular events somewhere for free. Perhaps you work in a University - they often have under-used rooms in a faculty somewhere. Maybe you know a local organisation with a community hall that’s under-used... your group might be just what they need to get more people engaging with them.